Next week is National Anti-Bullying week - we will be working with the class leaders, team captains and student leaders to share their ideas with their classes on the theme Power for Good. Monday 10th November is our chance to nod to odd socks day so please do support this if you can.

Message from PTA: Our PTA Annual General Meeting is on 19th November at 2:15pm (meet at school reception). Everyone's welcome - come along to meet the committee, share ideas, or just see what we're all about.

This month we have continued to find the answer to our Big Question 'Where on Earth are we?' by learning that we live in a county called Cornwall. We have learnt to find our local area on the map and have identified the school, the River Tamar and Gunnislake on a local area map. We have continued to learn about materials in Science and have tested their abilities to float or sink and to absorb water. We drew our final 'Wild Thing' illustrations after testing out different ways we could draw the various parts of our creatures body. The half term was rounded off by a Halloween dress up day and disco which was great spooky fun!

What a wonderful start to a new school year!

Our 'Big Question' this half term is 'Where on Earth are we?'. We have practised identifying the shape of the United Kingdom on maps, globes and aerial photographs. We have learnt that the United Kingdom is made up of four countries and have been learning some key facts about those countries.
In maths we have been deepening our understanding of number to 10. We have read and written them, ordered them and found one more or one less than them.
We have continued with Drawing Club just like we did in Reception Class. We have explored lots of stories and vocabulary.
In Science we have been learning about materials and the properties of materials that make them suitable for different jobs. 
Our RE this half term is all about the Christian Creation story. In Art we have begun to explore the techniques used by Maurice Sendak. Maurice Sendak wrote and illustrated the famous children's book 'Where the wild things are'.

Here is some writing from our history this week.  We have been reflecting on the importance on the census and what information it gives us about the time. 

This week, Year 6 have been tackling the challenge of long division, showing great determination as they break down complex problems step by step, while Year 5 have been developing their reasoning skills by working out missing numbers in a variety of contexts. Both year groups have also begun exploring the magical opening of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, discussing the atmosphere and characters introduced by C.S. Lewis. In history, the children have been learning about the importance of the census and how it helps historians understand the past, from population changes to the types of jobs people once had-an exciting blend of maths, literacy, and historical thinking!

The spellings for next week are: admit, admittance, begin, beginning, beginner, committed, forgetting, forbidden, permit and permitting. We have access to White Rose Infinity for homework. This generates 5 questions based on the Maths learning for the week. The questions change each time you scan the code so you can use it several times during the week. As this is new, it would be great to get your feedback as to how effective it is with pupils. You just need to download the White Rose app to use.  You can find the QR code on the Showbie chat for this week.  

 The Storytellers have had an exciting time learning all about Bonfire Night! We began by preparing delicious pumpkin soup, using fresh ingredients that the children helped to chop and stir. This tasty treat was enjoyed later on as we gathered around our very own campfire in the field. 

Using a special "Dragon's Breath" flint, the children worked together to help light the fire, learning all about the magic of combustion and how to stay safe around open flames. We discussed fire safety rules, maintained a safe distance, and everyone had a turn with sparklers, creating sparkling swirls in the air with great care and big smiles.

Due to the bout of blustery weather, our firework fun moved indoors today, where the children got creative! They made vibrant firework pictures by blowing paint across the page through straws and using paper stamps. A sprinkle of colourful glitter brought their artwork to life, capturing the excitement of fireworks in the night sky.

To top off a truly memorable few days, we spent the afternoon making and decorating our own candy apples-sticky, sparkly, and delicious! What a fantastic way to celebrate Bonfire Night with learning, teamwork, safety, and lots of tasty treats.

Ship Ahoy!!

During October, Year 6 were tasked with designing and making a pirate scarecrow from our locality.

Our pirate story was entitled, 'The Smuggler's Shadow' and was based on the infamous Captain Elias Kersey, Cornwall's ghost of the seas, who landed on the shores of the River Tamar in Gunnislake. (Don't search for him too hard - he is completely fictional and there was a lot of artistic license when it came to there being an actual 'shore' in Gunnislake!)

Year 6 enjoyed this project and were gifted a ticket for free entry to Cothele for an adult and 2 children over half term, where our pirate scarecrow could be found along the scarecrow trail, along with around 9 others!

In Science, our unit on Light tasked us with making periscopes - no easy task, as the angles of the mirrors needed to be accurately set at 45 degrees! The children did a great job, with some finding they could look under or over their tables, or even round corners!

In English, Year 6 have been writing adventure stories full of suspense, Autumn/Harvest poems (which some presented at our Harvest festival) and we have just begun investigating persuasive writing. In Maths, we have covered our unit on place value and also completed our unit consolidating all our knowledge of the 4 operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division).

Welcome Back!

Welcome to a brand new school year and to a fresh class of Year 6 children!

Year 6 have been keen to make use of our 'Chillout Zone' which was created last year. If things are a little tough or someone just needs a calm space, this wonderful area is available to them!

During this first half term, Year 6 will be learning all about the Anglo-Saxon rule in Britain, how to talk about their families in French and discussing the question,  'What would Jesus do?' in RE.

In PE, the unit is focused around Dance and in Art, we will be building up a set of drawing skills, so that we can finish with a 'Big Cat' entry for the Honey Fair.

In Computing, we will be covering an exciting new unit all about code making and code breaking and in PSHE, the learning is all about 'New beginnings'.

Our Science unit for the half term will teach us all about light - how it travels, how we see things and how we can make light change direction by understanding the properties of certain materials. We will also be carrying out an investigation into how shadows change throughout the day and how we can make the most of shade during a hot, sunny Summer's day.

Towards the end of this half term, Year 6 will be designing and making a scarecrow pirate, which will become part of the Cothele Scarecrow trail over half term.

Welcome back, everyone! We hope you had a lovely, restful half-term break. Thank you for all your support throughout Autumn 1 - the children have already achieved so much! A huge shout-out to the families who joined our Make a Difference Morning - the school looks fantastic thanks to your hard work tidying, painting and brightening our grounds. As we head into Autumn 2, we've got lots to look forward to:
Christmas productions & Christingle Service
Cinema & theatre trips
Educational visits & coding workshops
Remembrance Service - Tues 11th Nov, 10:40am (all welcome)
Dress Bright for Bonfire Night - Fri 7th Nov
Anti-Bullying Week & Odd Socks Day - from Mon 10th Nov
Saltash Light Switch-On - Fri 14th Nov
Open Day - Thurs 6th Nov, 9:30am

Plus, we'll be welcoming our School Improvement Partner on Tuesday 18th November to celebrate the brilliant progress being made across Brunel. Thank you, as always, for your continued support - it truly makes a difference.

Here's to an exciting and joyful half term ahead!

We ended this half term by having a spooky week. The children practised their tweezer skills by catching bugs, made spider cakes and pies in the playdough, made potions in the water area and went digging for bones in the sand. We also filled our star jar so we had a class treat. The children chose a spooky disco so we dressed up, had disco lights, music and played lots of party games and learnt some silly dance routines. 

Potion mixing is a particular favourite in Storytellers! The children donned their wizard hats and got busy in our "potion lab," carefully choosing from an assortment of colourful, bubbling ingredients. They poured, stirred, and sprinkled - adding sparkly dust, shimmering liquid, and a dash of fizz to see what would happen next. There were gasps of excitement as their mixtures bubbled, foamed, and changed colour, just like real magic! This hands-on fun sparked plenty of conversation, predictions, and awe as they explored how different ingredients interacted.

Hello Everyone,

This half term has come to an end, with pumpkins, outside exploring and some amazing writing.

In English this week, Reception have been focusing on the story 'Pumpkin Soup'. They have been handling a range of different pumpkins, using adjectives to describe their texture, appearance and smell. They have used their gross, fine motor and artistic skills to hollow out, paint and print with these pumpkins. 

Year 1 and 2 have completed their English unit, based on 'The Day the crayons quit' and Year 2 in particular, should be extremely proud of their final piece of work, which was a letter that included so many key features such as paragraphs. Well done everyone!

In science this week, we enjoyed learning about food chains. Year 1 made paper chains to show the order of the consumers and producers, while Year 2 drew and wrote explanations to order them. We explored the outside area, for examples of what we had learned.

We hope you have a lovely half term, and look forward to seeing you after a week's break.

From The Penhallow Team

Storytellers had a wonderful day full of Meg and Mog-style adventures! Everyone looked fantastic in their array of fancy dress - from witches and skeletons to pumpkins and even a King's Guard! The day was packed with fun and laughter as the children enjoyed spooky stories, dancing, and games like Pass the Pumpkin and Spider Splat!

Happy Half Term!

We've had a fabulous final week in Landaviddy. 

In English, we have been working hard to finish producing our neat copies of our Dartmoor Zoo recounts, using our best handwriting. I have been so impressed with the children's focus and determination to complete these. Well done everyone! 

In Maths, we explored adding 1s across a 10s boundary, which required lots of perseverance, but we were up for the challenge. We are looking forward to continue developing our adding and subtracting knowledge next half term. 

As part of our enquiry, 'Who Rules the Animal Kingdom?' we learnt about food chains in Science and created our sock puppets in DT, which was lots of fun. We experimented with different methods of joining, with some of us using glue, cellotape and choosing to sew in order to attach elements of our designs (see our pictures below).

Congratulations to Frankie for being chosen as Landaviddy's Person of the Week and a big well done to Hector and Tommy for achieving their 99 club badges. 

We hope you have a restful half term and a horrifying Halloween! We look forward to seeing you back at school on Monday 3rd November. 

Mrs Wilkie, Mrs Lister and Miss Colton

So it's been another very busy week with so many exciting events, including an African Dance workshop and research to commemorate Black History Month.

Also, Perranporth have been producing some super fact files to show off their knowledge from this half term's learning on Rivers. They have been speaking like Geographers and writing like Geographers; using key (tier3) vocabulary such as 'evaporation, precipitation and condensation' ...

Excitingly, we teamed up with Mousehole class to read them our fantastic Beastie Stories, we think you can see from their faces how much they enjoyed our stories.

Well, that's just about it for this half term, thank you for reading our blog and have a great holiday!